Future Film: Inside a Hybrid AI Shoot with Edward McGurn

​This Tuesday, Edward McGurn is going to show us what’s possible when you shoot the actors first on a bare gray stage, then generate everything around their performances, from the locations and sets to the final lighting, all with AI.

​Edward spent twenty years in film before founding Re(Ai)lism, his AI-native studio built to take projects from concept through finished delivery. He now heads AI production at MCM Creative, a full-service production and post house in Manhattan.

​This summer, his team’s AI spots for Phantom Fireworks aired nationally. Every AI frame came through his Re(Ai)lism pipeline, while the edit, color, and mix were completed at MCM.

​Tuesday, he’s screening his newest commercials and breaking down how they were made. He’ll start with a primer on gray box filmmaking for anyone new to it. Then he’ll walk us through his experience with Beeble and the pipeline he built around it, covering six weeks of production, including the parts that didn’t work.

​He’ll also get into what this looks like at a smaller scale. Most of us don’t have a stage in Manhattan, so a lot of the value is knowing which pieces can travel to an indie project or a two-person shop.

​For editors and filmmakers, it’s a rare chance to see a veteran producer and studio executive bring the discipline of traditional filmmaking to a production model built around AI.